Star Ranger #1

A good playing tip: when searching a hideout, always count the toothbrushes in the bathroom. It will at least tell you how many mobsters inside have good hygiene.

Here's a serious thought -- should counterfeit money be considered trophy treasure, worth experience points?  One could perhaps make an argument that Lawful Heroes could not benefit from counterfeit money, and that maybe only a Chaotic anti-Hero would actually knowingly use counterfeit money. A possible compromise position would be giving a Hero a good deed award (100 XP) for personally taking counterfeit money, of any amount, out of circulation.

I'm surprised it's taken this long for a comic book story to show cacti hurting people. I have trouble picturing a cactus as a mobster type, even though there are some dangerous plants (like creeper vines and man-eating trees) in Hideouts & Hoodlums.  I think, like skunks, cacti should be treated as a trap component, like -- if the Heroes go over this fence, they find a row of catci growing on the other side and must save vs. plot or take 1d3 points of damage from landing on them.

It's also interesting that our cowpoke seems to be taking damage from bronco busting. That might actually make sense in a campaign with a light mood -- the cowboy takes 1d3 damage per turn of bronco busting until he gets a good reaction roll from the bronco.

I like the adventure of Lee Trent here quite a bit; it deviates from the normal cowboy story by upping the ante a little. As a blatantly modern day Western, the bad guys can use machine guns instead of rifles or pistols.  Lee's "rocket pistol" is just a flare gun, but even that seems like a useful thing for a Hero to carry.

Although initiative in H&H can be left to a simple pair of dice rolls (with high roll going first), the rules encourage the Editor to consider other factors first, like who has a weapon already in hand.  Only using a stunt like Quick Draw should Lee able to go first before a cowboy with a throwing knife already in hand, as he does here.

Now this is really interesting, from a H&H perspective.  Could the game be used for an animal-only campaign?  Lobo is a Fighter, gaining XP by taking on bears...

...and besides combat, there's the threat of hunters' traps, and protecting your pack from them.  I do think there's the potential here for at least a short campaign. Any volunteers out there willing to try running one?

Here's an unusual premise -- the Hero is a Scientist with a gold-detecting machine. Now there's a plot-generating device!

Sorry -- spoilers! -- the Scientist turns out to be a Fighter pretending to be a Scientist, disguising his wireless radio as a gold-detector. The lesson here is that non-standard Heroes can still be built using class-based game mechanics, so long as the Hero just "dresses up" in the tropes of another class using flavor text.



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)